Smoggy success

While China's smog issues are nowhere near solved -- the country is still home to a large number of urban hubs battling air pollution issues -- there are signs of improvement. Neighboring India, meanwhile, now has a far worse problem on its hands, with 22 of the 30 most polluted cities, according to the Greenpeace/AirVisual report.

That's partly because the Indian government has not faced significant civil unrest around this issue. Public pressure has been the driving force of pollution policy in China, and it shows no sign of letting up.

But the government faces an uneasy balancing act: it needs to handle the public's environmental concerns, while avoiding taking action that would slow growth, all the time dealing with an economy that has grown rapidly and often without the safety and emissions standards people are now demanding.

Ordinary Chinese people, however, are painfully aware that the central government can issue all the enlightened policies it wants, but that does not mean they will be implemented locally, or escape being undermined by corruption and vested interests.

Pollution protests

The cities are generally located in poorer and less developed region than China's main coastal hubs -- this leaves them more vulnerable to the type of corruption and corner cutting that prevents regulations being fully implemented.

Citing government reports and whistleblowers, Caixin said the privatization of environmental testing operations since 2015 had led to "chaos," with testing not carried out, done poorly, or companies purchasing bills of good health when they should have failed checks.

This could explain why protesters, such as those in Wuhan, are unwilling to believe officials when they say plants will meet modern safety and emissions standards. In a rare state media report on the Wuhan protests, tabloid Global Times said that part of the issue "was related to insufficient communication between the government and the public."

"Analysts also noted that emissions monitoring along with a lack of transparency in sharing emissions data with the public helped stir complaints," the paper said.

The Chinese government is highly sensitive to the threat of protests like those in Wuhan, with the shadow of the 1989 Tiananmen massacre looming large. Calls for collective action are among the most censored subjects online, and people organizing protests or working for civil society groups can face harassment and imprisonment.

But while people may be willing to put political concerns aside for the sake of economic growth, they are not prepared to take risks with their children's health for GDP. The government knows this and has made a concerted effort to reduce air pollution.

For many, however, particularly those far from the capital, not enough is being done.

And in Wuhan thousands showed they would rather defy police batons and potential imprisonment than choke on bad air.